In the days leading up to Friday's start of men's basketball practice, GoldandBlack.com is taking a comprehensive look at the 2007-08 Boilermakers. Today, we look at experience.

For a team that will rely heavily on a handful of newcomers, and with just one senior, Purdue will not be the most experienced team in college basketball.

In fact, of the 14 players listed on the roster, only six have played a notable amount of minutes as Boilermakers. Only two - juniors Marcus Green and Bobby Riddell have played more than one season of college basketball at Purdue. The team's lone senior is former junior college transfer Tarrance Crump, whose first season on the court was a year ago.

This isn't to say, however, that a dearth of experience is cause for great worry at this point.

Purdue wasn't all that well seasoned a year ago, either, but at least had an experienced trio of seniors.

But one thing this year's team will have that last year's didn't is NCAA Tournament experience, for whatever it's worth. Coming into 2006-07, David Teague was the only Boilermaker to have played in a Big Dance, and that experience had come three years earlier.